A Dieselnomad Post: 1975 Bedford TK Horse Lorry

There aren't a lot of photos of our TK in existence. Digital cameras were only just getting popular and the SD cards didn't fit a lot of photos. Having a personal laptop to upload them onto was also not really a luxury, and without a lot of power in the lorry (we ran off solar mostly) we didn't even really run a laptop, so it would be dependent on getting to a library to put the card in the slot. So if you ran out of room on the card (you'd be lucky to fit 50 photos on one!) you'd delete the ones you thought you didn't need, not knowing that one day you might really, really wish you had them. I think this photo is the best one I've got that shows how we lived. I love the fact the sun's out and the back door is open to air it out, and there's my boy and our old dog and Jamie playing guitar on the tailgate. My son slept in the Luton and we slept on a raised bed at the back, which you can just see behind the red door. You can see the washing on the makeshift line, which I'd just washed by hand, using water from the stream. In this photo we were parked up on 1500 acres in Dorset, and were pretty lucky to do so. It was really out of the way, down a long track, and the only people that could ever see us was trout fisherman, as it was private land with no public thoroughfare. It was a really idyllic life for a few months, until we moved up to Somerset.

We'd spent two winters out of a vehicle at this stage, working on our new relationship and living in Dorset. We were pretty keen to move to Australia at this point because we knew we'd never fulfil our dream of owning land in England as it would just be impossible. Funnily enough, traveller friends of ours only just got their building permit after ten years living on their own land in Devon, and they'd really done the hard slog to get there, good on them. But Australia seemed a better option for us, considering I was Australian. But we were really broke, and our plan was only fledgeling anyway, so we were really thinking about getting a truck and moving back onto a site (where there would be a lot of people like us, essentially squatting unused land). Anyway, every day we'd walk past a house with a horse lorry and drool, thinking of how nice she'd be to live in. And one day, like a dream come true, there it was - the for sale sign in her windscreen. The woman couldn't believe that she sold her that fast.

We spent a couple of months cleaning her up. The previous owner had been living in her, but the back where the horses traditionally were kept was full of bird shit as she kept birds in there, using it as a shed for her horse gear, dogs and other animals. We pulled out the rubber matting to reveal the original floorboards, which we kept. We moved our beautiful old red leather sofa in and the white bookshelf that we used to have in the library lorry. I was particularly attached to that bookshelf as it's one of the reasons I fell in love with Jamie, as he had this awesome collection of books from Dostoevsky to Zola, the Koran to Buddhist Cosmology, Home Mechanics to British Wildflowers. It's a shame you can't see what it looked like when we were in it, but we only really thought to take photos after we'd cleaned her out to sell. I'm going to see if I have more floating around.

As you can see, our renovations were quite basic, but gosh we were proud of them. It was mostly a matter of scavenged furniture and I remember getting our mattress of the skip and making the bed out of skip wood too. The wallpaper was underneath this plastic cladding stuff and we thought it was cute so we left it. You can see the holes we cut out so the air from the woodburner would circulate up into the luton from the back 'lounge' area and through the holes we also cut in the floor. I remember we did have a fridge and a gas cooker but no oven, and a small table and chairs in the kitchen area. I loved the detail on the ply cupboards we made and the swirly handles as I've always been a fan of spirals.

It was awesome being in the green lorry - I don't think I've ever been so happy, except this is untrue and is just a turn of phrase to say how lovely life was. I've always been really happy living in small spaces - everything you need is right there. We did worry at one point that Jarrah would turn out to be a hunchback from living up in the Luton, crouched over playing Lego. His only privacy was a curtain, and one of the funniest moments was getting angry with me and 'swishing' the curtain shut. Now this obviously doesn't have the same effect as a slammed door, and to his credit, a few seconds later I hear giggles from behind the angrily swished curtain - bless him and his sense of humour.

When we moved back to Australia, we desperately missed this life. From the advantage of distance, we missed badgers snuffing in the pine forests behind us, the snow falling gently on the roof, coming home to site to see all the vehicles puff puffing in the cold air, the gathering of tribe around an oil drum fire, the cooking of Sunday roasts where everyone would cook one thing in their oven and all of us would gather in one truck to eat it, someone always around to help fix something, to chat to, to laugh with. It was rewarding just simply surviving, a pureness of simplicity that could really make your day by simply finding out that there was an endless supply of pine offcuts from a stair making company in the village, or an oak tree had fallen in the wind and the boys had been directing cars around it all day in high vis and had brought enough wood to last a good week and hard oak at that.
Or that someone had done a water run and you didn't have to, or that you were out with your shovel digging a pit for a shit and came across a giant puffball mushroom. And whilst it doesn't sound romantic having to heat water in a stock pot on the fire for a bath, it kinda is - having a hot bath is a luxury in a truck and I loved every minute of it. If you were strapped for cash or needed a ride or advice or a shoulder to cry on there was always someone around. Privacy was merely a shut door and people would mostly respect that. Of all the benefits to tiny homes and communal life, this is it – it’s a real opportunity to get back to being connected to other people. Yes, this is hard. It’s hard to put up with people’s foibles and sometimes downright asshole habits. But it beats being isolated and lonely, as we felt for a long time when we moved to Australia.

Yet there was thing that also weren't ideal, and I guess it's important to remember those too lest I get caught up in any bullshit nostalgia. Glossy #vanlife images lie about some of the harder things about living in vehicles and I think living the way we did at this time was also particularly challenging. We were lucky to live with a good set of crew but I tell you what, being awake all night listening to crew play the same fucking disco CD all night can be a bit tiring. One morning I ended up in hospital as I thought I was having an heart attack, because one guy was on the piss and he was ranting and raving as he often did when he overdid the special brew, swearing she'd had an affair, and he keeps coming in to our truck every hour to talk to us. We have no choice but to do so to calm him down, as for some reason he sees us as decent folk that he wouldn't attack with expletives and thought we understand his dilemma. Anyway, long story short, he steals our wood splitting ax and takes it to his truck, literally smashing the whole thing to pieces - all that hard work gone in one drunken rage. All that anxiety culminated in me getting hospitalised with a panic attack - something the doctors didn't even diagnose, instead calling it indigestion - yeah right - dude, I had an axe wielding man keeping me up all night and at some level, I kinda thought he might come for me, so hence the feeling of having a heart attack. Interestingly, that was the first time I realised anxiety was even a thing, and years later this would culminate in a nervous breakdown, but that's another story.

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Some Other Shitty Things we Were Glad to Leave Behind Us

checking our skin for ticks as deer were about (our son was six at the time, and won’t easily forget the time we had to get the tweezers out on his private parts)

the spade run – hi ho, hi ho, with a spade in all sorts of weather to dig a pit for our toilet

carting water in containers to cook and wash with, and lack of hot water. I remember once it was so fucking cold the gas froze and no one could boil a kettle, from memory no one's burners were on as we were all tatting down to move

not having a washing machine, especially in winter when it's muddy

sponge baths get a bit tedious and you long for a hot shower. Mind you, washing was always an adventure. Summer was brilliant, as you could jump in the stream. Winter was a tin bath by the fire or a trip to the local swimming pool (they had a sauna, so it was quite an outing).

trying to be a professional getting to work without mud on you when you live in the woods. It involves some clever tucking of trousers into socks, big welly boots, a spare pair of work shoes already in the car and some very careful maneuvering to get the boots off and the work shoes on.

weather – if it was raining all day every day, it gets tough being stuck inside, however romantic.

Kids! We only had one, but the older he was getting, the harder we knew it would be. This would come into play a few years later in Australia, as he entered Year 7 – he was very brave but you knew he wanted his own space and he didn’t WANT to be different – the kid who lived in a caravan coz his folks lived in a bus.

the threat of eviction and the politics of dealing with councils, landowners and the like - it's one thing being nomad, it's another thing trying to earn a buck and send your kid to school. Sure, we could have gone off travelling but with what money? And remember, we were trying to save enough to leave the country

Dealing with site politics - people's moods and dramas

Look there were times most of the above were okay, you know? You got used to the water run, the loo run, going wooding to keep you warm, being resourceful. That's just life. I loved most of that, and in many ways I long for those days again, and it's part of the reason I love travelling so much - living by your wits, surviving with what you have, getting back to basics. But sometimes you're just sick or really tired and the realizing you've run out of water and have got to walk across a frozen muddy field to get in the car to drive to a church or something to fill up your water container isn't a picnic.

Yet I'll always have wonderful memories of this green lorry. Who am I kidding? It was all totally romantic.

We have had quite a few vehicle live in conversion projects - still yet to post about our army ACCO, a Bedford bus, and a VW transporter, so please feel free to follow or encourage me to post more by commenting or upvoting or even re-steeming. Sometimes I feel as if I'm writing into a void - sometimes, you guys are awesome in your interactions and I adore hearing about your projects and dreams too.

If you'd like to read about Buttercup, our landrover, and the vehicle where we fell in love with both each other and doing up small spaces to live in, please check out the following posts.

Bedford Truck: Library Lorry https://steemit.com/vanlife/@riverflows/love-and-trucklife
1973 Series 3 Landrover https://steemit.com/landrover/@riverflows/dolphins-early-surf-and-eggy-bread-in-the-landie

Have the bestest of days or evenings, wherever you are in the world.

Have the best of days!